Cox v. Philadelphia, Harrisburg & Pittsburg Railroad

Citations

• 215 Pa. 506
• 64 A. 729
• 1906 Pa. LEXIS 833

Syllabus

<p>Railroads — Eminent domain — Measure of damages — Profits—Map—Evidence.</p> <p>The measure of damages for land taken or injured by a railroad company under the right of eminent domain is the difference in the market value of the tract as a whole before the taking and afterwards as affected by it. In adjusting this difference, the landowner is entitled to have the jury take into consideration the value of his property for any and every purpose or use to which it may be adapted, and to have the damages assessed upon a basis of the most valuable use to which the property may be adapted. On the other hand, the railroad company is entitled to any benefits or advantages which may accrue to the part of the tract of land, not taken or injured, by reason of the construction of the improvement.</p> <p>No allowance of damages for an actual or supposed loss of business profits carried on upon the premisos can be made.</p> <p>A landowner is not limited to any one use for which his property may be available, but ho is entitled to have its value considered for any and all purposes for which it can be used. He may, therefore, show by any competent testimony, expert or otherwise, that it is specially valuable for a certain particular purpose, such for instance as the raising of ducks. He will not, however, be permitted to show how many ducks he raised, or could raise in a year; nor will his witnesses be permitted to base the estimate of damages upon the profits which they thought the owner would derive from the duck-raising business.</p> <p>In such a ease the defendant railroad company cannot show that the use of the land as a duck farm would pollute the stream passing through it, and thereby prevent the use of the land for duck-raising purposes. Such a question is a collateral issue relating to matters between the owner and the lower riparian owners, and the railroad company in condemnation proceedings is not in a position to raise it.</p> <p>In railroad condemnation proceedings